DOM FOR POT Deck for Review

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

Heya - OK, I'll bite.

Crypt:
I would move away from Silvia - you don't want to be playing skill
cards on 10 cap vampires to get them optimized for your library. Laz
and Ignacio should be your lead large vampires - put in 3 of each and
you're 97% likely to see at least one of them in the opening draw. If
you decide to go 3 Laz and 2 Ignacio (also viable), you are still 93%
likely to hit at least one of them. Think long about that one - I'm
betting Ignacio's permarush is a big factor in generating offense and
clearing handjam.

I would drop Truman in favor of Vittorio Giovanni (5 cap, dom for nec
pot) and insert Vincent Day 5 cap (aus dom for pot tha) if you're
leaning towards 2 x Ignacio instead of 3.

Masters:
Now that we've fixed the Silvia problem, you can drop at least some of
the Fortitude skill cards. As I mentioned above, I dislike skill
grafting in most decks and would push harder to make the library turn
for inferiors on the midcaps. Yeah, I know you've got tech that
functions best with [FOR], not [for] - but that tech is best for your
fatties anyway.

Given your mix of vampires and nominal hardcore blood recursion, I
would opt for a more Blood Dolls than Minion Taps. You want to Doll up
the midcaps and Tap the fatties - and you'll typically have more
midcaps than fatties to use.

I abhor 1x Zillah's Valley. You can't count on getting it in turn 1-2
when you really want it. Drop this.

Possible Master adds to replace some of the things I suggested
stripping.
Dreams of the Sphinx - useful anytime.
Carver's Meat Packing and Storage = anti-weenie safeguard and blood
gain fun.
Giant's Blood - the only time I discard this is if someone else beat me
to playing it.

Actions
Look generally OK.

Modifiers:
I would try to squeeze in a few more bleed modifiers. Ask yourself how
often you're bleeding for 1. Few intelligent players will block those
bleeds - leaving you with a handful of combat cards you might not get
to use.

Combat:
I think your combat package is bulky, due to some inefficiency. You
could either pare it down some, or make it harder to penetrate at the
same card count.

Indomitability is, in my experience, worse than Hidden Strength unless
you need to generate a lot of presses in the absence of damage -
especially when you've got at least some Disarm in the deck. I would
swap at least some of them and believe that a cumulative total of 8 is
too great.

Torn Signposts don't seem to make as much sense to me when your lead
POT vamps already have + strength, unless you're playing them for the
midcaps to get 2 strength. I suggest Fists of Death or Mighty Grapple
instead - at least you can pick up some of the presses I suggested
removing above with the Grapple.

Your [for] vampires remain fairly vulnerability with this combat
package, unless you swap Rolling with the Punches for Skin of Steel, or
just add SoS in place of Indomitability/Hidden Strength. And with all
these, have you thought about Superior Mettle? It would have a place
in a deck of mine.

The biggest threat here is that [CEL] guns are likely to shred you in
the long run - you have little to provide in the way of maneuvers with
2x Unflinching Persistance and absolutely no ranged hitback. You
shouldn't count on outmaneuvering guns - you need something like
Earthshock to be able to be to hitback though.

Reaction:
Even with 6x Freak Drives and frequent minions popping up from the
uncontrolled region, I think that 2x Wake is a bit light.

I also worry that you have absolutely no vote defense or intercept.
Perhaps your metagame is safe, but in mine, Laz and Ignacio wouuld be
ripe PTO targets. Even without that, a solid vote deck would be
problematic in the predator seat.

There it is - have a field day!

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

Thanks for the advice. I'll respond on a case by case basis.

> I would move away from Silvia...Laz and Ignacio should be your lead large >vampires - put in 3 of each...

I was actually considering this change already. The reason I haven't
done it is that the current crypt is much less likely to result in
double draws of the fatties. Since Ignazio is only a 9-cap, the other
2 guys can Govern down to him and so far I've always been able to bring
out multiple large cap vampires. Silvia is certainly the weakest of
the 3 though, so I want to play some more games and see how she fairs
before pulling her.

> I would drop Truman in favor of Vittorio Giovanni (5 cap, dom for nec
> pot) and insert Vincent Day 5 cap (aus dom for pot tha) if you're
> leaning towards 2 x Ignacio instead of 3.

I really hate spending 5 pool for the same effect that I get with 4.
That said, putting in Vincent in the event of dropping to only 5
fatties is a good idea. Truman's superior FOR is really worth the
extra pool for this deck in its current incarnation, so I think he'll
stay.

> Now that we've fixed the Silvia problem, you can drop at least some of
> the Fortitude skill cards...

I could do that. Rolling at superior is really useful to protect my
midcaps though, since there is so much freakin' celerity in my meta.
Again, it's something to try.

> Given your mix of vampires and nominal hardcore blood recursion, I
> would opt for a more Blood Dolls than Minion Taps. You want to Doll up
> the midcaps and Tap the fatties - and you'll typically have more
> midcaps than fatties to use.

You're probably right. Perhaps 4 and 4, or switching the 3 and 5 ratio
would work best.

> I abhor 1x Zillah's Valley. You can't count on getting it in turn 1-2
> when you really want it. Drop this.

Yeah. Good call. Part of the theory here is that I can hopefully play
ZV later in the game, especially after an oust since I tend to pull
lots of vampires out of the crypt. In my last game I brought out
everyone except for Silvia and Cameron, neither of whom I drew into, so
the idea might work. You're alomst certainly right that I could have a
more effective master slot though.

> Possible Master adds to replace some of the things I suggested
> stripping.
> Dreams of the Sphinx - useful anytime.
> Carver's Meat Packing and Storage = anti-weenie safeguard and blood
> gain fun.
> Giant's Blood - the only time I discard this is if someone else beat me
> to playing it.

Dreams is an ok idea. It accomplishes much of what ZV would have
anyhow and the other bonuses are great. Sadly, I don't own any copies
of the other 2 cards and am currently not possessing the means to
acquire them.

> Actions
> Look generally OK.

Good to hear.

> Modifiers:
> I would try to squeeze in a few more bleed modifiers. Ask yourself how
> often you're bleeding for 1. Few intelligent players will block those
> bleeds - leaving you with a handful of combat cards you might not get
> to use.

Yeah. More Threats would help. I'll see what I can pull for them.

> Combat:
> I think your combat package is bulky, due to some inefficiency. You
> could either pare it down some, or make it harder to penetrate at the
> same card count.

This is partially supported by my truly insane metagame. I really do
need a LOT of combat cards to survive around here.

> Indomitability is, in my experience, worse than Hidden Strength unless
> you need to generate a lot of presses in the absence of damage -
> especially when you've got at least some Disarm in the deck. I would
> swap at least some of them and believe that a cumulative total of 8 is
> too great.

The press of Indom. is great when you have +strength and/or a Torn
Signpost. HS is probably a better idea, but weirdly enough I don't own
a single copy. I guess they're just in sets I didn't buy into much.

>
> Torn Signposts don't seem to make as much sense to me when your lead
> POT vamps already have + strength, unless you're playing them for the
> midcaps to get 2 strength. I suggest Fists of Death or Mighty Grapple
> instead - at least you can pick up some of the presses I suggested
> removing above with the Grapple.

Again, no FoD. Mighty Grapple is a good idea though. I'll certainly
consider that.

> Your [for] vampires remain fairly vulnerability with this combat
> package, unless you swap Rolling with the Punches for Skin of Steel, or
> just add SoS in place of Indomitability/Hidden Strength. And with all
> these, have you thought about Superior Mettle? It would have a place
> in a deck of mine.

That's why I use the For masters. Skin of Steel and Superior Mettle
are both good, but the amount of celerity I see really hampers the
latter, and the inferior of the former. Rolling works out well since I
can use it to prevent agg. pokes for 1 without spending anything. Some
swapping here might improve my general viability however.

> The biggest threat here is that [CEL] guns are likely to shred you in
> the long run - you have little to provide in the way of maneuvers with
> 2x Unflinching Persistance and absolutely no ranged hitback. You
> shouldn't count on outmaneuvering guns - you need something like
> Earthshock to be able to be to hitback though.

Definitely something to worry about. I frequently put Lids into
potence decks (I prefer them to ES) and a few in this one would likely
help. My best defence against these types of decks at present is to
just prevent the damage and press for more combat, though CEL is often
able to take care of that. I'll make a point to address this in
upcoming revisions.

> Reaction:
> Even with 6x Freak Drives and frequent minions popping up from the
> uncontrolled region, I think that 2x Wake is a bit light.

It is light. I need to free up some card slots for those.

> I also worry that you have absolutely no vote defense or intercept.
> Perhaps your metagame is safe, but in mine, Laz and Ignacio wouuld be
> ripe PTO targets. Even without that, a solid vote deck would be
> problematic in the predator seat.

It's actually very rare to see any kind of heavy politics in my games,
which is lucky for this deck. If I start worrying I could include
various DOM vote hosers or just pack more rushes to take out the
offending voters. Generally speaking, political decks have a rough
time around here because there's so much intercept and combat. They
tend to get pounded into the ground pretty quickly.

> There it is - have a field day!

Thanks again. I'll look this over again and see what changes I can
make. I may post an updated list in the near future.

Cthulukitty

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

> > I would drop Truman in favor of Vittorio Giovanni (5 cap, dom for nec
> > pot) and insert Vincent Day 5 cap (aus dom for pot tha) if you're
> > leaning towards 2 x Ignacio instead of 3.

Just a thought, and feel free to mock me if I'm a schmuck for this, but
what about the little Giovanni, like Vittorio, and even the fatties
like Silvia with Proxy Kissed? Save a couple of slots from the FOR
cards, and have a super hammer Vittorio for only five pool, or a Silvia
that can govern down to Lazverinus. All the same, a nice deck. If it
was more Gio based, I'd certainly think about some divine signs or that
anarch card for int or reduced bleed.
Cheers,
~mike

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

Hi.

One quick warning: this post is due to the fake courage of 2 glasses of
gin on a fairly empty stomach after an evening's training. So, I
haven't read much of the other replies to your deck, but I have looked
at the deck list and your comments on the metagame.

You note it's really combat-heavy - which means 32 combat cards isn't
going to cut it. You need to trump them either by not letting them
deploy their combat power (think obedience, or many other options), or
beating them at it.

With the minions you have, yes, do focus on Laz and Ignazio. I've
played 'm both, and Ignazio works better for me - because you will
almost always have the rush you need to unload your combat (which you
will/should have more of, as noted).

Ignazio combat building is almost too easy (he said, ignorant of the
other harsh decks in the metagame) - you prevent, grapple, disarm. Nice
and light on the combat slots, and it saves you some room for
conditioning/deflection. The heavy combat environment means that you're
going to need a lot of prevent, which couples nicely with lots of
disarm. Pack enough immortal grapple and you will have all the presses
you need (you may even need less grapple than you would against a
'normal' environment with a lot of S:ce, and more combat control, in
which case 6-8 unfliching persistance would certainly fit.

So: build you combat package around a core of prevent, disarm, grapple,
and unflinching, add whatever you need for your local meta, and you'll
be set.

Also note that a few permanents will go a long way in a combat deck,
making your need to play precious cards less. Depravity is a good card,
a simple flak jacket will just save you blood lost.

I personally like Ignazio with about 10 freaks, the combat package I
described, vast wealth, learjet, and the eye of hazimel, as played in
http://www.deckserver.net/jol3/standard001 .
Learjet is killer for a multirush deck that plays a few cards each
combat, IMHO.

Good luck with it!